Geographies of Solitude

Unlike other documentaries about biologists dedicated to the task of scrutinizing nature, in Geographies of Solitude Jacquelyn Mills inverts the terms of the equation, giving the environment the lead role, instead of relegating it to the usual role of a mere object of observation. The place is Sable Island, which is 36 kilometers long and less than two kilometers wide, 200 kilometers from the Canadian coast. A curved strip of land that floats like a freshly cut fingernail on the waters of the Atlantic, inhabited by wild horses, seals and a wide variety of seabirds. In this territory that seems to come out of a pirate novel, the environmentalist Zoe Lucas has dedicated herself for 40 years to the task of cataloging the native flora and fauna. Mills’s camera records her as one more element of the landscape, with the sounds of the island as the only incidental music.